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I know its a bit in bad taste to make a rant thread, but this is really bugging me and GW seems to be doubling down on the concept.

Who the feth thought it would be intelligent to make Space Marines a "stealth force"? Lately it seems GW is pushing the new line of Primaris Space Marines to have many, many "stealth troops" like the Reivers, Eliminators, Suppressors and Infiltrators as well as the upcomming Invictor Warsuits and without counting HQ choices in Reiver gear. I don't understand the idea of making 8 foot tall giants in brightly colored power armor a "stealthy" faction. Their entire mythos and even their armor style makes them look like knights and especially well suited for brutal close combat fights, but somehow, despite all of this, someone decided to make them more and more specialised in the one thing a giant in power suit would be logically bad at: stealth. This is a creative decision I would compare to making a potential ratling faction a close combat centered force. Of all the stealth faction the Imperium could reasonnably have like light infantry Guardsmen, Scions or even a Skitarii Ranger subforce they decided that the stealth specialist should be the giant knights. What possible line of reasonning could lead to such a place?

I don't mind the models. Many of them are actually great from a purely. Hell, even the upcomming Invictor Warsuit is basically a smarter looking Nemesis Dreadknight and rather nice model overall. Taken on their own these are not bad decision, but its an incredibly stupid one in my opinion when you take into account the stereotypes upon which Space Marines built their popularity, the believableness of your univers and its internal consistency (which is already fairly stretched and low respectively in the first place) and, especially, the design and expension room of other Imperium faction. If you give stealth units to Space Marines, you can't really produce Guards stealth specialists units without having the two be in direct competition in any list building forces. Even in books and storylines both become redundant and in direct competition. It constrain other factions, prevents them from establishing their proper identity to attract a player base for them all the while unbalancing your game by allowing players to select the best unit of a wide variety to fullfil a role.

I guess Space Marines aren't the only one who are heading toward stange issues. Lately, Craftworld Eldars seem to be moving more and more toward Wraith armies, which plays and looks radically differently from their fast moving, elite, light infantry style dominated by Aspect Warriors. This makes them cross into Necron territory in terms of theme. I suppose that such changes both in Space Marines and Eldars are a prelude to a large tectonic changes between factions with Guards being moved to "tank and artillery with little more", Space Marines to be "heavy and stealth infantry" (while Sisters occupy the "poor-man Marine substitute" position they always had and Skitarii become the "improved Imperial Guard" faction thus relegating at least two Imperium faction as "second fiddle", unpopular faction) while Eldars are split in two factions: the dead ones and the living ones (instead of the nice ones and the evil ones).

Anybody else has an opinion on this?

That groups of less than 1000 dudes were making meaningful contributions to wars involving literally trillions of people was the least believable part of an absolutely off the wall insane setting tbh.

Space marines make MUCH more sense as a stealth force because a couple of dudes wandering around in fancy, brightly colored armor should have, by all logic, gotten their dumb arses slaughtered years ago.

With space marines moving towards targeted, tactical movements and operating more like rambo first blood and less like rambo 4, they're a bit less nonsensical.

yup stealth marines what a stupid and unprecidented idea

Raven Guard say Hi




seriously, between evasion tactics, sensor baffles etc marines could be reasonably stealthy, by time they're in visual range you're proably dead.


This is the 5th primaris whine thread in as many days, we get it some of the more conservitive elements here don't like Primaris Marines.

I think GW looked at infinity models and were like man that IP looks cool.. $$$$$$$$

Then they were like remember the war suit from Avatar which was a very popular movie people loved? $$$$

Ravenguard and Alpha Legion always were stealthy Legions. Now they got models to show that. If I played Ravenguard I'd be happy about these, finally they got some signature units outside of Forgeworld. I'd still give them beakies because the Primaris Helm looks really boring, just like MK IV did, too.

Horus Heresy has Power Armored Camo Cloaked Marines as well. Available to literally every Legion too. It is not a new concept.

I doubt anyone at Games-Workshop thought it was an intelligent idea to make stealthy Space Marines, but as I just posted in another thread

we're talking about a universe in which interplanetary space battles and orbital bombardments are a thing, and the antagonists still settle their differences by fighting with axes and swords? Over-the-top, brightly coloured, power armoured, chainsword wielding superhumans have been a core part of 40k since its inception.

I doubt the designers at Games-Workshop feel in any way beholden to anything being sensible or intelligent, because that's never been part of their design philosophy. As far as I can tell, their only design requirement is for everything to look "cool," which of course is always subjective.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Ravenguard and Alpha Legion always were stealthy Legions. Now they got models to show that. If I played Ravenguard I'd be happy about these, finally they got some signature units outside of Forgeworld. I'd still give them beakies because the Primaris Helm looks really boring, just like MK IV did, too.

I found this pic earlier, it looks great

Space marines make the most sense as a force that makes use of stealth to me. I compare them USMC Recon where operating behind enemy lines is standard operation. I also consider standard marine power equivalent to light tank. Fairly tough, but far from invincible. Given limited manpower, it makes sense for marine to get in as close position as possible if marine command doesn't believe that the 'shock and awe' of space marines attacking is going offer much. Being the Angels of the Emperor certainly does have its psychological advantages both on their enemies as well as any attached allies and well worth dropping in full chapter colors screaming, "For the Emperah!" At the same time, I imagine there are a great number of times that the enemy is blase to the presence of space marines and there are no allies to rally. Probably more the case since the fall of Cadia. In those situations it makes the most sense to make use of the element of surprise as much as possible and gather as much reconnaissance before committing to the attack.

I do believe that nearly all lasting chapters make use of camouflage to some effect. I imagine most chapters use it during most operations where showing their chapter colors gains little and never when it is a hindrance. As for the art and way miniatures are painted, I think they are done in garish colors because painting in various shades of greens, browns and grays doesn't pop off the page like blue, red and yellow. Besides from personal experience camouflaged miniatures mostly just get forgotten my both players for most the game until one of them ask, "Didn't you/I have another unit?" around turn 3/4. I have had to literally search over the entire table to locate a squad I put in a forest at the start of the game and completely forgot they were they until I was packing up and noticed they were missing.


Besides I rather like my Avenging Eagles color scheme:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Ravenguard and Alpha Legion always were stealthy Legions. Now they got models to show that. If I played Ravenguard I'd be happy about these, finally they got some signature units outside of Forgeworld. I'd still give them beakies because the Primaris Helm looks really boring, just like MK IV did, too.

I know and both of them were fairly stupid concept or at least poorly executed ones. At least, back in the days, Space Marines in stealth mission weren't equipped with power armors, were simply very tall, not giants and were equipped with camocloaks. If you want "stealth marines", at least have the decency to put them out of power armors and keep them to human size. The idea of having some Chapters using confirmed Space Marines as Scouts mounted on specialised Land Speeders was fairly good even though Raven Guard went sideway with their thematical character an units being Assault Marines, a unit design for shock and awe much more then stealth and infiltration.

As for Alpha Legionnaires, they are basically famous for being very good at ordering humans to infiltrate and sabotage stuff for them which is a bit dumb in a certain sense. The real "stars" of the Alpha Legion are either their commanders or their amazingly well trained cultists and human operatives (AKA the non Space Marines).

Stealth isn't just Sam Fischer crawling around behind boxes making silent kills.

Stealth is also getting into position to engage the enemy before they can react to your positioning.

Space Marines are shown in the lore to be damned sneaky when the need calls for it, even if that is sneaky in the "no witnesses to report you" sort of way, even in power armour.

A marine isn't a thumping mass of metal but someone whose suit is like a second skin allowing them to tread nearly silently despite their size and weight (nearly because there is a field produced by the power armout that you can literally feel when you're next to it).

They can't be as silent as the guard, but the can lay traps, set up conceal ambushes, flank enemy positions and generally get the job done.

And now Primaris basically have a stripped down version of ehat Raven Guard have snuck around in for the last 10k years meaning it's even easier to do so than before.

Decades ago marines actually repainted their armour depending on the theatre they were engaging in - lots of classic camo painted marines back then. The heraldic colours being their formal wear, so to speak...

That's kind of gotten lost in the flandarising of marines and 40k in general.

Another thing to note, is that virtually no single weapon carried by marines barring those new 'silenced' bolters (which doesn't make much sense as the rocket will be noisy after it's left the barrel...) is ANY good for stealth operations.

Even powerswords crackle and hum. Chainswords are louder than bolters.... (at least that new unit of stealthers has two normal blades rather than chainswords...)..

Ravenguard are at least black, but they also love their jump packs and there's no way to make those silent...

I think a lot of the arguments here though are conflating 'forward advancing' or 'recon' etc with Stealth (ie assassin, ninja stuff).

The best those new marines can do is get into forward positions quickly and quietly, but they aren't going to act as stealth operators, hiding and silently killing before returning to hiding.

Not unless they use silent rocket fuel, and are actually allowed to paint their armour a camoflage pattern...

The bizarre thing is that Primaris would be less stealthy from being bigger and less able to navigate humanoid made buildings and even general nature foliage than an ordinary Marine or smaller creature.

In fact, Primaris are all wrong. They should be smaller than a Space Marine, man sized or even smaller especially if they are de-emphasising close combat.

Primaris are a mistake who's seeds were planted from the wrong-sized plasic Cadians.

40k has gone into a weird direction for me, and not in a good way. It's starting to become something else, i'm not sure what it is. It's no longer what I grew up loving..it's something else now. I know change to some degree is inevitable but that doesn't mean I have to continue to like it.

The first book about Uriel Ventris has him sneaking through a jungle. Why is stealth such a foreign concept to you?

 fraser1191 wrote:
The first book about Uriel Ventris has him sneaking through a jungle. Why is stealth such a foreign concept to you?

You can use the English language to say all sorts of things - I've got a four cornerd triangle. See I just said something that means nothing.

Matt Ward's background is a classic example of abusing the ability of English to be grammatically correct and yet absolute nonsense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hellebore wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:
The first book about Uriel Ventris has him sneaking through a jungle. Why is stealth such a foreign concept to you?

You can use the English language to say all sorts of things - I've got a four cornerd triangle. See I just said something that means nothing.

Being able to write "Uriel ventris successfully snuck through a jungle" doesn't mean it makes sense.


Matt Ward's background is a classic example of abusing the ability of English to be grammatically correct and yet absolute nonsense.

 fraser1191 wrote:
The first book about Uriel Ventris has him sneaking through a jungle. Why is stealth such a foreign concept to you?

it's the primaris hate train. the last week has seen this forum filled with people basicly spitballing reasons to hate the primaris, throwing gak out and seeing it they can get it to stick. when they could just say "no I'm not a fan of them" and no one'll judge them. but when they attempt to scream "PRIMARIS ARE HORRIABLE AND RUINING SPACE MARINES BY BEING UTTERLY UNPRECIDENTED" etc then yeah, people can, will and should, call them on their gak

Interestingly though, apart from the size, with the new emphasis on being tactical have we gone full circle?



You may not like it, but this is what peak Space Marine performance looks like.

How's the new not-a-dreadnought going to reload its holstered sidearm? Its other hand is a fricking gun! Even if it wasn't, feel sorry for the pilot having to do that with a joystick in the heat of battle... Or does the pilot aim the gun round at the cockpit so he can reach to stick a new ammo drum on it?

 Daba wrote:
Interestingly though, apart from the size, with the new emphasis on being tactical have we gone full circle?



You may not like it, but this is what peak Space Marine performance looks like.

I was thinking the same thing.

BrianDavion wrote:
yup stealth marines what a stupid and unprecidented idea

Raven Guard say Hi




seriously, between evasion tactics, sensor baffles etc marines could be reasonably stealthy, by time they're in visual range you're proably dead.


This is the 5th primaris whine thread in as many days, we get it some of the more conservitive elements here don't like Primaris Marines.

There is a difference between actual Shocktroop-infiltration-tactics and sneaky-breeky-camper-on-a-hill-sniper-breeki 2.0 metal gear crossover though.

Not Online!!! wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
yup stealth marines what a stupid and unprecidented idea

Raven Guard say Hi




seriously, between evasion tactics, sensor baffles etc marines could be reasonably stealthy, by time they're in visual range you're proably dead.


This is the 5th primaris whine thread in as many days, we get it some of the more conservitive elements here don't like Primaris Marines.

There is a difference between actual Shocktroop-infiltration-tactics and sneaky-breeky-camper-on-a-hill-sniper-breeki 2.0 metal gear crossover though.

and space marines have done both long before vanguard Primaris became a thing

BrianDavion wrote:

and space marines have done both long before vanguard Primaris became a thing

Yes, but now that it is the Primaris doing it it is different and everything is ruined...

 Crimson wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

and space marines have done both long before vanguard Primaris became a thing

Yes, but now that it is the Primaris doing it it is different and everything is ruined...

pretty much. "I KNOW THIS WAS ALWAYS PART OF THE BACKGROUND BUT... DON'T YOU HATE THAT PRIMARIS DO THIS! IT RUINS MARINES!"

Regarding the weapons complaint, did people forget about combat knives? Historically they were common among a lot of marine scout elements, and they're literally on the models for most of the newer Phobos guys.

All this hemming and hawing about why it's suddenly not okay -now- despite the odd stuff in the lore reminds me of this screenshot I found last week:
REMOVED DUE TO LANGUAGE

And he's right, we accept all sorts of completely flying rodent gak ideas but everytime something Primaris comes up people lose their minds despite it being usually less insane than the stuff already in the canon.

Hell, Night Lords sneak around with jump packs and bat wings on their helmets and have done so for -years-. We've joked about it too, but that's been it: we joked but we accepted it.

Frankly the community needs to grow up and stop acting like Primaris are the second coming of Tau.

Historically? They're one of the Marine Basic Side-Arms! Literally every Space Marine has a Combat Knife, it's like people just forgot it exists once they called it CCW for the longest time.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Historically? They're one of the Marine Basic Side-Arms! Literally every Space Marine has a Combat Knife, it's like people just forgot it exists once they called it CCW for the longest time.

Fair point.

 Crimson wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

and space marines have done both long before vanguard Primaris became a thing

Yes, but now that it is the Primaris doing it it is different and everything is ruined...

Didn't know marine snipers were a thing.
Enligthen me.
Or are you referring to C.s goto?

Read the narrative of Shadow spear and you will understand the concept of "stealth" of marines and how the vanguard primaris fit into it.

Long story short, Guilliman has appreciated quite a lot the effects of softening the enemy defenses before going all shock and awe marine style, so he included a company of vanguards into all chapters.